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Altarpiece Reconstruction

Overview

Giotto's explorations and innovations in art during the early 14th century developed, a full century later, into the Italian Renaissance. Besides making panel paintings, he executed many fresco cycles—the most famous at the Arena Chapel, Padua—and he also worked as an architect and sculptor.

Transformed by Giotto, the stylized figures in paintings such as the Enthroned Madonna and Child took on human, believable qualities. Whereas his Sienese contemporary Duccio di Buoninsegna (Sienese, c. 1250/1255 - 1318/1319) concentrated on line, pattern, and shape arranged on a flat plane, the Florentine Giotto emphasized mass and volume, a classical approach to form. By giving his figures a blocky, corporeal character, the artist introduced great three-dimensional plasticity to painting.

Painted during the latter part of Giotto's career, the Madonna and Child was the central part of a five-section polyptych, or altarpiece in many panels (see Reconstruction). Giotto utilized a conservative Byzantine-style background in gold leaf, symbolizing the realm of heaven, and included a white rose, the traditional symbol of Mary's purity as well as a reference to the innocence lost through Original Sin. Yet, the Madonna and Child introduces a new naturalistic trend in painting. Instead of making the blessing gesture of a philosopher, the infant Christ grasps his mother's left index finger in a typically baby-like way as he playfully reaches for the flower that she holds.

Entry

The painting in the National Gallery of Art presents the Virgin and Child according to a variant of the compositional scheme known as the Hodegetria Virgin, in which Mary’s right hand, instead of indicating her Son, holds a rose that identifies her as the “rose of Sharon”[1]&nbsp[1]Song of Solomon 2:1: “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.” In medieval religious thought, the rose is often linked to the figure of Mary, who is praised as rosa speciosa or rosa gratiae divinae; cf. M. Schmidt and S. Egbers, “Rose,” in Marienlexikon, ed. Remigius Bäumer and Leo Scheffczyk, 6 vols. (St. Ottilien, 1993), 5:548–552. Eugenio Battisti’s conjecture of a connection between flower and rosary, on the other hand, is unfounded. See Eugenio Battisti, Piero della Francesca, 2 vols. (Milan, 1971), 1:389, 528 n. 548. It cannot be excluded that the iconography of the Virgin with a rose was influenced by transalpine models, for which see Julian Gardner, “Panel Paintings Attributed to Giotto in American Collections,” Center / National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts 19 (1999): 71–72; Julian Gardner, “Giotto in America (and Elsewhere),” in Italian Panel Painting of the Due­cento and Trecento, ed. Victor M. Schmidt, Studies in the History of Art (Washington, DC, and New Haven, 2002), 171–176. However, the motif of the Madonna presenting the Christ child with a rose predates Giotto and is attested in Tuscan painting since the thirteenth century; cf. Dorothy C. Shorr, The Christ Child in Devotional Images in Italy during the XIV Century (New York, 1954), 114. It is also known that an oratory was built around an image of the “Madonna delle Rose” at Lucca in 1309; see Angela Protesti Faggi, “Un episodio di protogiottismo a Lucca: La ‘Madonna della Rosa,’” Antichità viva 27 (1988): 3–9. and hence the Church, mystic bride of Christ.[2]&nbsp[2]Ever since the third century, the Canticles (the Song of Solomon) had been considered an allegorical description of God’s relation with the Church and hence in medieval exegesis an expression of Christ’s love for the Church. See Frank L. Cross, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (London and New York, 1958), 1270. The gesture of the Christ child, his left hand extended to grasp his mother’s forefinger, also presumably has a symbolic as well as a playful or affectionate significance; in other versions of the composition the child even pulls on his mother’s hand with the forefinger pointed towards him, as if actively soliciting her designation of him as a lamb, sacrificial victim.[3]&nbsp[3]“The isolated forefinger of the Virgin’s right hand would seem to possess a variety of meanings,” observed Dorothy C. Shorr in The Christ Child in Devotional Images in Italy during the XIV Century (New York, 1954), 168. In the case of the painting being discussed here, since the right hand of Mary is occupied in holding the symbolic rose, the artist used the other hand in a Christological sense: the Christ child grasps his mother’s forefinger as if to point it towards himself, thus designating him as victim. Shorr also observed, “This pointing finger has already been seen in French sculpture of the late thirteenth century, when the so-called Vierge dorée of Amiens Cathedral points to the Child seated on her arm.”

Various hypotheses have also been advanced about the presumed destination of the polyptych of which the Washington Madonna formed part. The proposal, first formulated by Mather (1925), that it was one of the four polyptychs that Ghiberti mentioned in Santa Croce, met with wide support.[20]&nbsp[20]Frank Jewett Mather, “Two Attributions to Giotto,” Art Studies 3 (1925): 25–27. See Julius von Schlosser, ed., Lorenzo Ghibertis Denkwürdigkeiten: I Commentarii, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1912), 1:36: “Nell’ordine de’ frati minori [in Florence] quattro cappelle et quattro tauole” (In the order of friars minor of Florence [i.e., Santa Croce] four chapels and four altarpieces). Vasari, ever since the first edition (1550) of his Vite, specified that the chapels in question were that with the stories of Saint Francis (the Bardi Chapel), that of the Peruzzi, that of the Giugni, and a fourth to the left of the sanctuary (the family chapel of the Tosinghi and Spinelli). Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri nell’edizione per i tipi di Lorenzo Torrentino, Firenze 1550, ed. Luciano Bellosi and Aldo Rossi (Turin, 1986), 119. Later, observing that one of the panels in Chaalis represented Saint Lawrence and that in the Museo Horne Saint Stephen, Gnudi (1959), convinced like many others of the common origin of these panels with the Goldman Madonna, cautiously suggested as its original site the chapel dedicated to these saints in Santa Croce — ​​that is, the chapel of the Pulci and Berardi families.[21]&nbsp[21]On this chapel, the penultimate to the left of the cappella maggiore, see Walter Paatz and Elisabeth Paatz, Die Kirchen von Florenz: Ein kunst­geschichtliches Handbuch, 6 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1940), 1:574; Richard Offner, Miklós Boskovits, and Enrica Neri Lusanna, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 3, The Works of Bernardo Daddi, new ed. (Florence, 1989), 122–145. The frescoes by Bernardo Daddi, with stories of Saints Lawrence and Stephen, probably date to the mid-third decade or slightly before. However, since they are superimposed over earlier frescoes (or possibly merely geometrical decoration), the chapel could have been officiated several years before Daddi’s intervention and perhaps even furnished with an altarpiece. Although many found the proposal convincing, Gardner (1999, 2002)[22]&nbsp[22]Julian Gardner, “Panel Paintings Attributed to Giotto in American Collections,” Center / National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts 19 (1999): 71; Julian Gardner, “Giotto in America (and Elsewhere),” in Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento, ed. Victor M. Schmidt, Studies in the History of Art (Washington, DC, and New Haven, 2002), 176. placed it in doubt: according to this scholar, the original altar blocks that survive in the family chapels in the east transept of Santa Croce were too small ever to have supported an altarpiece some three meters in length, as the polyptych in question must have been.[23]&nbsp[23]Comparison with Giotto’s surviving polyptychs that include half figures of saints (the ones in the Badia, today in the Uffizi, Florence, and Santa Maria del Fiore [the Duomo]) shows a ratio between height and width of c. 2.5:1. If we assume that the panel in the National Gallery of Art originally had a size and shape similar to the panels of the two saints now in Chaalis, it must have been topped by an equilateral triangular gable and had an overall height of approximately 125 cm. We can then calculate the total width of the five-part polyptych as c. 312 cm. On the structure and proportions of Giotto’s polyptychs in general, see Monika Cämmerer-­George, Die Rahmung der toskanischen Altarbilder im Trecento (Strasbourg, 1966), 50–85.

An alternative hypothesis, formulated by Venturi (1931, 1933), identified the panel now in Washington and its presumed companions as components of the lost polyptych in the church of the Badia in Florence.[24]&nbsp[24]Lionello Venturi, Pitture italiane in America (Milan, 1931), no. 26; Lionello Venturi, Italian Paintings in America, trans. Countess Vanden Heuvel and Charles Marriott, 3 vols. (New York and Milan, 1933), 1; no. 32. Ugo Procacci (1962), however, refuted the proposal and succeeded in identifying the former Badia altarpiece with the still intact polyptych that entered the Museo di Santa Croce in the nineteenth century.[25]&nbsp[25]Ugo Procacci, “La tavola di Giotto dell’altar maggiore della Chiesa della Badia fiorentina,” in Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Mario Salmi, ed. Filippa Aliberti, 3 vols. (Rome, 1962), 2:9–45. The polyptych has been on display in the Uffizi, Florence, since 1957. Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti (1949) advanced yet another proposal, according to which the panels now divided among the museums of Chaalis, Florence, and Washington were components of the polyptych painted by Giotto for the church of San Francesco in Borgo Sansepolcro,[26]&nbsp[26]Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, in Giorgio Vasari, Le vite dei più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architetti, ed. Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti (Milan, 1949), 4:282 n. 69. The “tavola di man di Giotto, di figure piccole, che poi se n’è ita in pezzi” (painting by the hand of Giotto, with small figures, which was then broken into pieces), putatively rediscovered in Borgo Sansepolcro, was reported by Vasari in the second edition (1568) of Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, 6 vols. (Florence, 1967), 2:113. The tendency now is to accept the hypothesis of Martin Davies, who identified the fragments of this polyptych with the stories of Christ divided among the museums of Boston, London, Munich, New York, and the Berenson Library at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence. See Martin Davies, The Earlier Italian Schools, National Gallery Catalogues (London, 1951), 181; and note 8 above. but this hypothesis has been found unconvincing.

If the problem of the destination of the polyptych remains unresolved, by observing the characteristics of polyptychs by Giotto himself and by other Florentine painters (for example, that by Jacopo del Casentino, now in New Orleans)[27]&nbsp[27]Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, no. 61.60. The polyptych given to Jacopo del Casentino is one of the few Florentine polyptychs of the period to have survived intact; see Richard Offner and Miklós Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 4, Bernardo Daddi, His Shop and Following, new ed. (Florence, 1991), 179–189. datable within the first quarter of the fourteenth century, we can conclude that the altarpiece of which the Goldman Madonna formed the center is unlikely to have been very different in appearance from that conjectured by Longhi (1930–1931)[fig. 4]&nbsp[fig. 4] Reconstruction of the Badia polyptych by Giotto as proposed by Roberto Longhi, from left to right: Saint Stephen, Museo Horne, Florence; Saint John the Evangelist (fig. 2); Madonna and Child, NGA; Saint Lawrence (fig. 3). By flanking the panel in the Gallery with panels of saints of slightly smaller size, we would obtain an ensemble similar in dimensions to those of the former Badia polyptych (which we know was intended for the high altar of that church). It would have considerably exceeded in width those polyptychs executed by Giotto for side chapels or for long-established altars in older churches.[28]&nbsp[28]The Badia polyptych, painted by Giotto for the early medieval church that had been undergoing enlargement and reconstruction from 1284 onward, measures 91 × 340 cm. The polyptych painted by Simone Martini (Sienese, active from 1315; died 1344) in 1319 for the high altar of the Dominican church of Santa Caterina in Pisa measures 195 × 340 cm; that by Pietro Lorenzetti (Sienese, active 1306 - 1345), commissioned in 1320 for the main altar of the pieve of Santa Maria in Arezzo, 298 × 309 cm; and the panel by Meo da Siena, dated 1333 and destined for the high altar of San Pietro in Perugia, now in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut at Frankfurt, 59.5 × 304 cm. Smaller polyptychs were made for altars in side chapels or for the high altars in early churches, where the altar tables were generally of reduced size. We may cite as an example Giotto’s Stefan­eschi altarpiece in Old Saint Peter’s in Rome, whose original dimensions, despite its prestigious destination, were just over two and a half meters in width. On the problem, cf. Julian Gardner, “Fronts and Backs: Setting and Structure,” in La pittura nel XIV e XV secolo, il contributo dell’analisi tecnica alla storia dell’arte, ed. Hendrik W. van Os and J. R. J. van Asperen de Boer (Bologna, 1983), 297–322; Julian Gardner, “Giotto in America (and Elsewhere),” in Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento, ed. Victor M. Schmidt, Studies in the History of Art (Washington, DC, and New Haven, 2002), 160–181. It would be futile, based on current knowledge, to go any further in the field of conjecture; it will suffice to point out that among the churches in which panels by Giotto are mentioned by the earlier sources, the most probable provenances are likely to be the Florentine churches of Santa Croce and Ognissanti.[29]&nbsp[29]Peter Murray’s useful compilation (1959), complemented now by the work of Michael Viktor Schwarz and Pia Theis (2004), listed, apart from the Badia polyptych, four panels by Giotto in the church of Santa Croce, one in San Giorgio alla Costa (the fragmentary Maestà now in the Museo Diocesano of Florence), a crucifix and a now lost image of Saint Louis of Toulouse formerly in Santa Maria Novella, and a crucifix and four panels in Ognissanti. See Peter Murray, An Index of Attributions Made in Tuscan Sources before Vasari (Florence, 1959), 79–89; and Michael Viktor Schwarz and Pia Theis, Giottus pictor, vol. 1, Giottos Leben (Vienna, 2004), 285–303. The tabula altaris in the chapel of the Palazzo del Bargello is perhaps cited by error in a manuscript of Filippo Villani’s De origine. Other manuscripts of Villani’s book only report the presence of Giotto’s frescoes in this chapel; cf. Schwarz and Theis 2004, 290. Of the four panels cited in Santa Croce, that of the Baroncelli Chapel is still in situ. There are no firm reasons for assuming that the polyptych now in the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh has a provenance from the family chapels of the east side of the transept of this church, though its relatively small size (105.7 × 250 cm) and the presence of Francis of Assisi among the saints represented (Santa Croce being a Franciscan church) make this a possibility. The hypothesis of Wilhelm Suida (1931), who considered this polyptych as intended for the Peruzzi Chapel, is now generally accepted. See Wilhelm Suida, “A Giotto Altarpiece,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 59 (1931): 188–193. The proposed identification of one of Giotto’s Santa Croce panels with that formerly in the Bromley Davenport collection at Capesthorne Hall (Macclesfield) is more uncertain. This altarpiece, perhaps a product of Giotto’s atelier and indeed intended for the church of Santa Croce, was certainly not painted by the hand of the master; the proposed attribution to the young Taddeo Gaddi seems very convincing. Its original destination might have been the Lupicini Chapel or, less probable, the Bardi Saint Francis Chapel, in either of which, given its relatively small size, it could have been easily accommodated on the altar. Cf. Mina Gregori, “Sul polittico Bromley Davenport di Taddeo Gaddi e sulla sua originaria collocazione,” Paragone 25, no. 297 (1974): 73–83; and Federico Zeri, “Italian Primitives at Mssrs. Wildenstein,” The Burlington Magazine 107 (1965): 252–256. We may wonder whether so acute an observer as Ghiberti could ever have classified it as an autograph work by the master himself. The panels of saints dispersed between the Horne and Jacquemart-­André museums remain to be considered. That they come from the chapels in the east transept of Santa Croce seems improbable due to their measurements; see Julian Gardner, “Giotto in America (and Elsewhere),” in Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento, ed. Victor M. Schmidt, Studies in the History of Art (Washington, DC, and New Haven, 2002), 181 n. 80. But the existence of a Giotto polyptych would also be conceivable in the chapel of Saint Louis, on the north side of the transept: this chapel, dating to the years 1332–1335, could have accommodated an altarpiece of a width exceeding 3 meters; cf. Irene Hueck, “Stifter und Patronatsrecht: Dokumente zu zwei Kapellen der Bardi,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 20 (1976): 263–270. It cannot be excluded, lastly, that one of Giotto’s four polyptychs might have been executed for the high altar of the old church of Santa Croce, in use at least until 1314 and perhaps until 1320/1330 and doubtless not left without appropriate decoration. See Walter Paatz and Elisabeth Paatz, Die Kirchen von Florenz: Ein kunstgeschichtliches Handbuch, 6 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1940), 1:500.As for the church of Ognissanti, one of the panels with an undoubted provenance from the church is the Maestà now in the Uffizi, Florence, often—though without foundation—considered an altarpiece for the high altar or displayed on its rood-screen; cf. Irene Hueck, “Le opere di Giotto per la chiesa di Ognissanti,” in La ‘Madonna d’Ognissanti’ di Giotto restaurata (Florence, 1992), 37–49. Whatever the case, the fact remains that the Maestà comes from Ognissanti, as does the Dormitio Virginis now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (no. 1884) and the great painted crucifix still in situ in the church that Ghiberti cited in addition to the four panels. On the crucifix, see Marco Ciatti, ed., L’officina di Giotto: Il restauro della Croce di Ognissanti, Problemi di conservazione e restauro (Florence, 2010). Two other panels therefore remain to be identified. One might have been the “mezza Nostra Donna col fanciullo in braccio” that Ghiberti saw above the side door of the church leading into the cloister. It is possible, however, that this Madonna and Child was not a panel painting but a frescoed lunette. Julius von Schlosser, ed., Lorenzo Ghibertis Denkwürdigkeiten, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1912), 1:36.

With regard to the chronological position of the panel being discussed here, some features, such as the exclusive use of decorations incised freehand (hence the absence of punched motifs), seem to offer firm clues.[30]&nbsp[30]Erling Skaug’s conclusion that “in Florence extensive punch work was introduced only about 1333–1334” was perhaps excessively cautious, since it was based only on securely dated paintings. Even so, Skaug admitted the occasional use of punches by Giotto before his terminus post quem, for example in the Stefaneschi altarpiece now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana (on which see the following note) and in that of the Baroncelli Chapel in Santa Croce. See Erling S. Skaug, Punch Marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico: Attribution, Chronology, and Workshop Relationships in Tuscan Panel Painting with Particular Consideration to Florence, c. 1330–1430, 2 vols. (Oslo, 1994), 1:34–36. This latter chapel was founded, according to the inscription on its external wall, in 1328; see Andrew Ladis, Taddeo Gaddi: Critical Reappraisal and Catalogue Raisonné (Columbia, MO, 1982), 88. In any case, the fact that the gold ground of the Goldman Madonna is totally devoid of punched decoration might be an indication that it predates both the Roman and Florentine polyptychs. In the Stefaneschi altarpiece, which ought to date to the early 1320s,[31]&nbsp[31]The Stefaneschi altarpiece has lost its original frame, which probably bore the signature of Giotto and the date of execution. The fourteenth-century Liber benefactorum in the Basilica Vaticana did not hesitate to identify Giotto as the artist of the polyptych, while the manuscript of the canon Giacomo Grimaldi, dating to the early seventeenth century, said it was “circa annum MCCCXX depicta.” Cf. Wolfgang Fritz Volbach, Catalogo della Pinacoteca Vaticana, vol. 1, I dipinti dal X secolo fino a Giotto (Vatican City, 1979), 45–51. There are no good reasons to doubt the reliability of this affirmation, probably based on an inscription partially legible on the original frame. In addition, a punch mark is used in the Ognissanti crucifix, which is probably earlier than the Stefaneschi altarpiece. See Miklós Boskovits, “Il Crocifisso di Giotto della chiesa di Ognissanti: Riflessioni dopo il restauro,” in L’Officina di Giotto: Il restauro della Croce di Ognissanti, ed. Marco Ciatti (Florence, 2010), 47–62. the artist used at least one punched motif, and this type of decoration is increasingly found in his later paintings. The characteristics of the motifs incised freehand in the halos and the pseudo-­Kufic lettering in the broad ornamental border that runs around the margins of the panel [fig. 5]&nbsp[fig. 5] Graphic tracing of the halos and pseudo-Kufic lettering, Giotto, Madonna and Child, c. 1310/1315, tempera on poplar, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Samuel H. Kress Collection. (Joanna Dunn, National Gallery of Art, Washington) seem recurrent in the works by Giotto since the end of the thirteenth century [fig. 6]&nbsp[fig. 6] Graphic tracing of the decoration of the halo of Christ, Giotto, Painted Crucifix, San Felice in Piazza, Florence, but perhaps it is not by chance that the practice of surrounding the halos with a double row of dots appears no earlier than the Maestà in the Uffizi, Florence.[32]&nbsp[32]Giotto had already used Kufic-type lettering in the halos of the mourners in the Santa Maria Novella crucifix, a painting generally recognized as one of the master’s earliest works, datable to c. 1290. Motifs similar to those of Mary’s halo in the Washington panel—interlaced motifs that are repeated in equal form from right to left, with the exception of two different decorative elements incised in the gold ground above the Madonna’s right shoulder—are matched in Christ’s halo in the Giottesque crucifix in San Felice in Piazza, Florence (figs. 5 and 6). Tracing based on Magnolia Scudieri, ed., Lacroce giottesca di San Felice in Piazza: Storia e restauro (Venice, 1992), 146. Invariably discussed as a product of Giotto’s shop and thought to be painted mainly by the master’s assistants, this work was dated to the early years of the fourteenth century by Giovanni Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega (Milan, 1967), 137–138; Carlo Volpe, “Sulla Croce di San Felice in Piazza e la cronologia dei crocefissi giotteschi,” in Giotto e il suo tempo: Atti del congresso internazionale per la celebrazione del vii centenario della nascità di Giotto, Assisi, Padova, Firenze (Rome, 1971), 253–263; and Giorgio Bonsanti, “La bottega di Giotto e la Croce di San Felice,” in La croce giottesca di San Felice in Piazza: Storia e restauro, ed. Magnolia Scudieri (Venice, 1992), 53–90; and toward 1310 or shortly after, i.e., the time of the Peruzzi Chapel, by Luciano Bellosi, Giotto (Florence, 1981), 69; and Miklós Boskovits, “Una vetrata e un frammento d’affresco di Giotto nel museo di Santa Croce,” in Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Federico Zeri, 2 vols. (Milan, 1984), 1:44, the latter of whom considered the crucifix an autograph painting by Giotto. Similar ornamental motifs also appear in the frescoes of the Saint Nicholas chapel in the lower church of San Francesco in Assisi, painted, according to the more recent studies, no later than c. 1300; cf. Brigitte Klesse, Seidenstoffe in der italienischen Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts (Bern, 1967), 192, no. 53 of the repertoire. For the dating of the Uffizi Maestà to the end of the first decade of the fourteenth century, cf. Giorgio Bonsanti, “La bottega di Giotto,” in Giotto: Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, ed. Angelo Tartuferi (Florence, 2000), 66; and Miklós Boskovits, “Giotto: Un artista poco conosciuto?” in Giotto: Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, ed. Angelo Tartuferi (Florence, 2000), 85. Adriano Pero­ni, “La Maestà di Ognissanti rivisitata dopo il restauro,” in La Madonna d’Ognissanti di Giotto restaurata (Florence, 1992), 30, argued, however, that the painting should date to the early years of the century. To these elements, which seem to indicate a relatively early date in Giotto’s career—within the second decade of the fourteenth century—we can perhaps add an observation regarding the red coif that covers Mary’s head and can be glimpsed, on either side of her face, below the pseudo-­Kufic hem of the mantle that covers her head. This is an archaic, byzantinizing motif that would disappear from Giotto’s authenticated works in the course of the 1320s.[33]&nbsp[33]In medieval Byzantine devotional images of the Madonna and Child—and hence also in Italian ones—Mary’s hair is in general hidden within a kind of coif. The color of this article of clothing may vary, but at least in central Italy within the last decades of the thirteenth and first decades of the fourteenth century, it is usually red, as in the Washington Madonna. The Virgin is represented in this way in Giotto’s pre-1300 Maestà now in the Museo Diocesano in Florence, in the fresco on the inner façade of the upper church of the basilica in Assisi, and also in the Uffizi Maestà and in the Stefaneschi altarpiece. In Giotto’s later works, such as the polyptych in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna; the Madonna of Santa Maria a Ricorboli, also in Florence; and the polyptych in the Baroncelli Chapel in Santa Croce (c. 1328), the mother of Christ instead wears a wimple and a transparent veil that covers her head but leaves her blond hair visible below it. A relatively early date might also be suggested by the neckline of the Virgin’s dress. Though this is admittedly an unreliable clue, it concurs with other features in suggesting a date for the Washington painting no later than the early 1320s.[34]&nbsp[34]Bellosi, who was the first to use the width of the scooped neckline as an indication of dating, compared the neckline of the Washington Madonna with those painted by Pietro Lorenzetti in 1320 in the polyptych of the Pieve of Santa Maria in Arezzo, in Luciano Bellosi, “Moda e cronologia: B) per la pittura di primo Trecento,” Prospettiva 11 (1977): 12–14. Of course, that does not imply a dating ad annum; the fact remains that we find increasingly wider necklines than that of the Goldman Madonna in Giotto’s last decade of activity.

A stylistic reading of the painting seems to confirm the chronological position suggested by the abovementioned data. Its morphological features connect the Goldman Madonna with the central phase of Giotto’s career, what might be defined as his “Peruzzi phase.” Unfortunately, the frescoes of the Peruzzi Chapel (in Santa Croce), much admired by the sources and by artists in the past, are now reduced to almost total illegibility by the radical abrasionAbrasion&nbspA gradual loss of material on the surface. It can be caused by rubbing, wearing, or scraping against itself or another material. It may be a deteriorative process that occurs over time as a result of weathering or handling or it may be due to a deliberate attempt to smooth the material. to which they have been subjected. Other paintings have survived from the same phase, in which the artist appears no longer satisfied with the serene classicism of his Paduan paintings. Solemnity and monumentality were no longer enough: a more circumstantial, naturalistic description of the events, and a deeper participation of the protagonists in them, were needed. While further accentuating the physical stature and presence of his figures, Giotto now strove to underline their active involvement in the emotional climate of the scenes. These were also the years of the cycle of frescoes in the Magdalene chapel in the lower church of San Francesco at Assisi (for which there are good reasons for dating it to 1308).[35]&nbsp[35]This is the date of the Cappella della Maddalena frescoes proposed by Giovanni Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega (Milan, 1967), 90–94; Lucia­no Bellosi, Giotto (Florence, 1981), 59; Cesare Brandi, Giotto (Milan, 1983), 115–118; Filippo Todini, “Pittura del Duecento e del Trecento in Umbria e il cantiere di Assisi,” in La Pittura in Italia: Il Duecento e il Trecento, ed. Enrico Castelnuovo, 2 vols. (Milan, 1986), 2:395; Giorgio Bonsanti, “La bottega di Giotto,” in Giotto: Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, ed. Angelo Tartuferi (Florence, 2000), 69; Miklós Boskovits, “Giotto di Bondone,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 82 vols. (Rome, 2000), 55:411. The Assisi document also seems to confirm this date, asserting that the painter Palmerino di Guido repaid a credit on Giotto’s behalf in January 1309; cf. Valentino Martinelli, “Un documento per Giotto ad Assisi,” Storia dell’arte 19 (1973): 193–208. Evidently, the painter had been present and was working in the Umbrian city until shortly before this date. Francesca Flores d’Arcais, Giotto (Milan, 1995), 272, proposed a later date (1315–1318) for the Magdalene chapel cycle. The polyptych in the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh can be assumed to be only one or two years later: it is stylistically close to the mural cycle in Assisi.[36]&nbsp[36]Cf. note 29 above. It cannot be excluded that the Raleigh polyptych belonged to the Peruzzi Chapel. However, the altarpiece is probably earlier than supposed in the past: Miklós Boskovits argued for a dating of 1310 in Miklós Boskovits, “Il Crocifisso di Giotto della chiesa di Ognissanti: Riflessioni dopo il restauro,” in L’Officina di Giotto: Il restauro della Croce di Ognissanti, ed. Marco Ciatti (Florence, 2010), 52, 61 n. 27. Apart from the semidestroyed frescoes of the Peruzzi Chapel,[37]&nbsp[37]Most art historians of the period accepted the dating of the Peruzzi Chapel cycle to 1310–1315. Cf. Giovanni Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega (Milan, 1967), 105–107; Luciano Bellosi, Giotto (Florence, 1981), 62; Cesare Brandi, Giotto (Milan, 1983), 185; Francesca Flores d’Arcais, Giotto (Milan, 1995), 252–261; Giorgio Bonsanti, “La bottega di Giotto,” in Giotto: Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, ed. Angelo Tartuferi (Florence, 2000), 66; Miklós Boskovits, “Giotto: Un artista poco conosciuto?” in Giotto: Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, ed. Angelo Tartuferi (Florence, 2000), 86–87. Hayden B. J. Maginnis, Painting in the Age of Giotto: A Historical Reevaluation (University Park, PA, 1997), 131, seemed to prefer a slightly later dating. the surviving stained-glass windows of the last bay of Santa Croce before the transept (now replaced by copies: the original windows are housed in the Museo dell’Opera)[38]&nbsp[38]See Miklós Boskovits, “Una vetrata e un frammento d’affresco di Giotto nel museo di Santa Croce,” in Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Federico Zeri, 2 vols. (Milan, 1984), 1:39–45; Miklós Boskovits, in Giotto: Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, ed. Angelo Tartuferi (Florence, 2000), 138–140. must also date to the early 1310s. The painted crucifix in the Florentine church of the Ognissanti, together with the Dormitio Virginis painted for the same church (now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin), also should date to this phase.[39]&nbsp[39]The Dormitio Virginis in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, no. 884, is generally dated to c. 1310. See Giovanni Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega (Milan, 1967), 109–112; Luciano Bellosi, Giotto (Florence, 1981), 59; Miklós Boskovits, ed., Frühe italienische Malerei: Gemäldegalerie Berlin, Katalog der Gemälde, trans. Erich Schleier (Berlin, 1988), 56–61; Francesca Flores d’Arcais, Giotto (Milan, 1995), 237–242. The crucifix in Ognissanti, although commissioned for the same church, is generally thought to be slightly later: according to Previtali 1967, 137–138, in the third decade of the century; according to Bellosi 1981, 69, “di un’epoca assai posteriore” (of considerably later period) than the Peruzzi Chapel frescoes. Miklós Boskovits, “Il Crocifisso di Giotto della chiesa di Ognissanti: Riflessioni dopo il restauro,” in L’Officina di Giotto: Il restauro della Croce di Ognissanti, ed. Marco Ciatti (Florence, 2010), 58, considered the painting executed by the mid-1310s, like Flores d’Arcais (1995), 243–244, who proposed the period 1310–1315, and Giorgio Bonsanti, in Giotto: Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, ed. Angelo Tartuferi (Florence, 2000), 147–150, who preferred the date c. 1315.

Whatever our painting’s destination, it ought to date to the years around 1310 to 1315, when the two panels of Chaalis (components, perhaps, of the same polyptych) also saw the light of day.

Miklós Boskovits (1935–2011)

March 21, 2016

Provenance

Probably commissioned for the church of Santa Croce or the church of Ognissanti, both Florence.[1] Edouard-Alexandre de Max [1869-1924], Paris;[2] sold 1917 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); sold to Henry Goldman [1857-1937], New York, by 1920;[3] sold 1 February 1937 back to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[4] sold 1939 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] Peter Murray's compilation of polyptychs by Giotto (An Index of attributions made in Tuscan Sources before Vasari, Florence, 1959: 79-89), complemented by the work of Michael Viktor Schwarz and Pia Theis (Giottus pictor, 2 vols., Viienna, Cologne, and Weimar, 2004: 1:285-303), lists, apart from the polyptych in the church of the Badia in Florence, four panels in the church of Santa Croce, one in San Giorgio alla Costa, a Crucifix and a now lost image of Saint Louis of Toulouse formerly in Santa Maria novella, and a Crucifix and four panels in Ognissanti.

[2] Edward Fowles, who managed the Paris office of Duveen Brothers, recalls in his memoirs, “In the autumn of 1917, our old friend Charles Wakefield Mori took me to see an early Florentine Madonna and Child (attributed to Giotto) which belonged to Max, the famous actor of the Comédie Française [in Paris]. As I examined the painting in Max’s bedroom . . . he told me it had been given to his great aunt by the Pope. Berenson considered it an excellent work . . . [by Bernardo Daddi] . . . we agreed to purchase the painting. Berenson later supervised its cleaning and confessed that he was beginning to perceive certain Giottesque qualities . . . I had an Italian frame made for the painting. . . .” (Edward Fowles, Memories of Duveen Brothers, London, 1976: 104). In a letter of 31 October 1958, to Carlyle Burrows (see note 5 below), Fowles relates that he “bought the picture just 44 years ago,” which would have put the purchase in 1914 (Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 101, box 246, folder 3; copy in NGA curatorial files). The former owner’s story about the painting’s provenance does not seem plausible; at any rate no evidence can be adduced to corroborate it. On the Romanian-born Edouard de Max, friend of Cocteau and leading tragedian on the Parisian stage in the first decade of the century, see Louis Delluc, Chez de Max, Paris, 1918.

[3] The painting was displayed in the Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition (1920) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as part of the Goldman Collection.

[4] See the letter of 5 January 1937, from Henry Goldman to Duveen Brothers, in which he confirms the sale to the company of nine paintings and one sculpture (Duveen Brothers Records, reel 312, box 457, folder 4; see also reel 89, box 234, folder 23, and reel 101, box 246, folders 2 and 3; copies in NGA curatorial files).

[5] Carlyle Burrows states this in an article in the New York Herald Tribune (30 October 1958): 5.

Exhibition History

Loan Exhibition of Important Early Italian Paintings in the Possession of Notable American Collectors, Duveen Brothers, New York, 1924, no. 15, as by Bernardo Daddi (no. 2 in illustrated 1926 version of catalogue, as by Giotto, or an Assistant).

1930

Exhibition of Italian Art 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1930, no. 16, as Attributed to Giotto (no. 8, pl. V in commemorative catalogue published 1931; not in souvenir catalogue).

Shapley, Fern Rusk. Early Italian Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number Three in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 16, color repro.

Galassi, Maria Clelia, and Elizabeth Walmsley. "Painting Technique in the Late Works of Giotto: Infrared Examination of Seven Panels from Altarpieces Painted for Santa Croce." In The Quest for the Original: Underdrawing and Technology in Painting. Symposium XVI, Bruges, September 21-23, 2006. Edited by Hélène Verougstraete and Colombe Janssens de Bisthoven. Leuven, 2009: 116-122, figs. 4, 6.

National Gallery of Art. Highlights from the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Washington, 2016: 36, repro. 37.

Technical Summary

The wooden support is a single-member poplar panel [1]&nbsp[1]The NGA scientific research department analyzed the wood (see report dated January 11, 1989, in NGA conservation files). with vertical grain, which was cradledCradling&nbspAttaching a woodent grid to the reverse of a panel to prevent the panel's warping. sometime in the late 1910s and again in 1937, this time by Stephen Pichetto.[2]&nbsp[2]The Duveen Brothers Records contain an entry for restoration by their Paris restorer, Mme Helfer, in 1918 and another entry for restoration in 1919, presumably by a different restorer because the amount is recorded in US dollars (see Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 422). Historic x-radiographs show the panel with the earlier cradle. On Pichetto’s treatment, see Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols. (Washington, DC, 1979), 1:221, and see also the exchange of cables between the company’s New York and London offices (Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 89, box 234, folder 23). Probably during the earlier of these treatments, the panel was thinned and trimmed along the edges of the terminal arch.

The painted surface is generally in a good state, but the gold ground is slightly abradedAbrasion&nbspA gradual loss of material on the surface. It can be caused by rubbing, wearing, or scraping against itself or another material. It may be a deteriorative process that occurs over time as a result of weathering or handling or it may be due to a deliberate attempt to smooth the material.. Numerous scattered small paint losses and a few woodworm exit holes are visible in the painting. The losses are concentrated mainly in the lower portion of the Virgin’s mantle. There is also some staining in the Virgin’s mantle, which was inpainted when the painting underwent treatment to remove a discolored varnish in 2012.[6]&nbsp[6]At the time of this treatment the painting was analyzed by the NGA scientific research department using x-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF), cross-sections in combination with scanning electron microscopy, fiber optic reflectance spectrometry (XRF), and false color infrared reflectography (see forthcoming reports in NGA conservation files).

Altarpiece Reconstruction

Click on any panel in the altarpiece reconstruction below to see an enlarged version of the image. Color reproductions in the reconstruction indicate panels in the National Gallery of Art collection.

[fig. 6]
Graphic tracing of the decoration of the halo of Christ, Giotto, Painted Crucifix, San Felice in Piazza, Florence
Compare Image

[1]

Song of Solomon 2:1: “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.” In medieval religious thought, the rose is often linked to the figure of Mary, who is praised as rosa speciosa or rosa gratiae divinae; cf. M. Schmidt and S. Egbers, “Rose,” in Marienlexikon, ed. Remigius Bäumer and Leo Scheffczyk, 6 vols. (St. Ottilien, 1993), 5:548–552. Eugenio Battisti’s conjecture of a connection between flower and rosary, on the other hand, is unfounded. See Eugenio Battisti, Piero della Francesca, 2 vols. (Milan, 1971), 1:389, 528 n. 548. It cannot be excluded that the iconography of the Virgin with a rose was influenced by transalpine models, for which see Julian Gardner, “Panel Paintings Attributed to Giotto in American Collections,” Center / National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts 19 (1999): 71–72; Julian Gardner, “Giotto in America (and Elsewhere),” in Italian Panel Painting of the Due­cento and Trecento, ed. Victor M. Schmidt, Studies in the History of Art (Washington, DC, and New Haven, 2002), 171–176. However, the motif of the Madonna presenting the Christ child with a rose predates Giotto and is attested in Tuscan painting since the thirteenth century; cf. Dorothy C. Shorr, The Christ Child in Devotional Images in Italy during the XIV Century (New York, 1954), 114. It is also known that an oratory was built around an image of the “Madonna delle Rose” at Lucca in 1309; see Angela Protesti Faggi, “Un episodio di protogiottismo a Lucca: La ‘Madonna della Rosa,’” Antichità viva 27 (1988): 3–9.

[2]

Ever since the third century, the Canticles (the Song of Solomon) had been considered an allegorical description of God’s relation with the Church and hence in medieval exegesis an expression of Christ’s love for the Church. See Frank L. Cross, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (London and New York, 1958), 1270.

[3]

“The isolated forefinger of the Virgin’s right hand would seem to possess a variety of meanings,” observed Dorothy C. Shorr in The Christ Child in Devotional Images in Italy during the XIV Century (New York, 1954), 168. In the case of the painting being discussed here, since the right hand of Mary is occupied in holding the symbolic rose, the artist used the other hand in a Christological sense: the Christ child grasps his mother’s forefinger as if to point it towards himself, thus designating him as victim. Shorr also observed, “This pointing finger has already been seen in French sculpture of the late thirteenth century, when the so-called Vierge dorée of Amiens Cathedral points to the Child seated on her arm.”

[4]

Even if it has perhaps been cropped below by c. 2.5 cm, as Monika Cämmerer-George suggested, the panel in the National Gallery of Art has the squat proportions of paintings dating to the first two decades of the fourteenth century, in which the panels of the main tier, if of rectangular format, often are or were surmounted by triangular gables. See Monika Cämmerer-George, Die Rahmung der toskanischen Altarbilder im Trecento (Strasbourg, 1966), 71. Examples of this type, apart from the laterals in Chaalis (cf. note 9 below), probably included Giotto’s panel of Saint Anthony of Padua in the Berenson Library at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence; cf. Franco Russoli and Nicky Mariano, La raccolta Berenson (Milan, 1962), no. 1. Though now shorn of gables, the panels attributed to Pacino di Bonaguida from the polyptych now divided between the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence (no. 6146) and the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, or nos. 1961.1.2 and 1961.1.3 in the El Paso Museum of Art attributed to Jacopo del Casentino, also exemplify the same type of altarpiece. See, respectively, Richard Offner and Miklós Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Flor­entine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 2, Elder Contemp­­oraries of Bernardo Daddi, new ed. (Florence, 1987), 155–161; Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 7, The Biadaiolo Illuminator, Master of the Dominican Effigies (New York, 1957), 100–101.

[5]

For example, cf. the polyptych no. 28 in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena attributed to Duccio di Buoninsegna (Sienese, c. 1250/1255 - 1318/1319) himself, and polyptych no. 33 in the same gallery, attributed to the Master of Città di Castello (Italian, active c. 1290 - 1320); the polyptych by the Goodhart Duccesque Master in the church of Monterongriffoli; and that by Ugolino da Siena in the Clark Art Institute in Williams­town, Massachusetts. See James H. Stubblebine, Duccio di Buoninsegna and His School, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1979), 2: figs. 131, 188, 262, 450. According to Monika Cämmerer-­George, Die Rahmung der toskanischen Altarbilder im Trecento (Strasbourg, 1966), 71, the type of altarpiece in question is of Sienese origin; but clearly altarpieces of this type, even if they have not survived intact, must have been widespread both in Florence and in Arezzo, as suggested inter alia by the example of the early fourteenth-century polyptych now divided between the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (Loeser bequest) and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (nos. 1943.203, 1946.13).

[6]

Richard Offner, “A Remarkable Exhibition of Italian Paintings,” The Arts 5 (1924): 244, was the first to note that “a St. Stephen in the Horne collection in Florence​ . . . ​happens to have originally stood to our Virgin’s right in the same original polyptych.” The hypothesis was immediately accepted by Mather and by Curt H. Weigelt in 1925 and by practically all the subsequent literature, at least until Dillian Gordon pointed out that “the Washington panel​ . . . ​has been gilded with orange bole” while “the St. Stephen​ . . . ​was definitely gilded with green [earth].” From this observation she deduced not that the panels belong to different altarpieces but instead that they probably were executed by different artists. This hypothesis is rather improbable, because while the realization of an altarpiece could have been entrusted to more than one painter, it is unlikely they would each have been left the freedom to choose their own techniques, including the kind of preparation to be used before applying the gilding. Cf. Frank Jewett Mather, “Two Attributions to Giotto,” Art Studies 3 (1925): 25–27; Curt H. Weigelt, Giotto: Des Meisters Gemälde (Stuttgart, 1925), 242; Dillian Gordon, “A Dossal by Giotto and His Workshop: Some Problems of Attribution, Provenance and Patronage,” The Burlington Magazine 131 (1989): 526. [Editor’s note: see also Cecelia Frosinini, “St Stephen" in Dominique Thiebaut, ed., Giotto e compagni (Paris, 2013), 139–140, for a discussion of the recent technical examination of the painting. This examination revealed that St Stephen was also gilded with a red bole on top of a green earth layer. Miklós Boskovits did not survive to learn of these new findings.]

[7]

Both paintings are surrounded by ornamental borders with decorative motifs incised freehand into the gold ground. The ornamental borders are framed in both panels by a double row of dots impressed into the gold ground. The halos also have incised decoration freehand, hence without the use of punched motifs, and are surrounded both inside and outside by concentric circles formed of dots. The border of the child’s halo is further punctuated by three rosettes.

[8]

See note 6 above. Gilding laid on a green underpaint foundation has also been observed elsewhere in Giotto’s oeuvre, in particular in his stories of Christ, now divided among the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston (Presentation of Jesus in the Temple), the Berenson Library at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence (Entombment), the National Gallery in London (Descent of the Holy Spirit), the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (Last Supper, Crucifixion, Descent to Limbo), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Adoration of the Magi). See also Dillian Gordon, “A Dossal by Giotto and His Workshop: Some Problems of Attribution, Provenance and Patronage,” The Burlington Magazine 131 (1989): 524–531. [Editor’s note: see also Dominique Thiébaut, ed., Giotto e compagni (Paris, 2013), 130–151, for a discussion of the results of the cleaning of this painting, which Miklós Boskovits did not survive to examine. The National Gallery of Art has preserved his manuscript as he submitted it. In the case of these Giotto panels, it is important to point out that Boskovits wrote about them before technical examination in advance of exhibitions at the J. Paul Getty Museum and at the Louvre revealed new information about their construction.]

[9]

Roberto Longhi, “Progressi nella reintegrazione d’un polittico di Giotto,” Dedalo 11 (1930–1931): 285–291, was the first to propose the reconstruction of a dispersed polyptych with the Washington Madonna at its center, flanked to the left by the Saint John the Evangelist in Chaalis and the Saint Stephen in the Museo Horne, and to the right by the Saint Lawrence in Chaalis and a still unidentified panel. The hypothesis met with a generally favorable reception among art historians, though Monika Cämmerer-George (1966) contested it, noting incongruities between the presumed laterals of the altarpiece in terms of both the decorative borders around the outer edge of the gold ground and the respective size of the panels and the proportions of the saints represented in them. See Monika Cämmerer-­George, Die Rahmung der toskanischen Altarbilder im Trecento (Strasbourg, 1966), 71–74, 208 n. 233. Curiously, Francesca Flores d’Arcais, though considering Longhi’s reconstruction valid, also adduced some stylistic divergences between the panels in Chaalis and Florence, in Francesca Flores d’Arcais, Giotto (Milan, 1995), 320, 324. Only in recent years, however, were Cämmerer-­George’s doubts accepted by Giovanna Ragionieri, in Giovanni Previtali and Giovanna Ragionieri, Giotto e la sua bottega, ed. Alessandro Conti, 3rd ed. (Milan, 1993), 147 n. 217, 329, 348, 391; and Alessandro Tomei, “Giotto,” in Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale, 12 vols. (Rome, 1995), 6:671. Miklós Boskovits (2000) and Angelo Tartuferi (2000) firmly ruled out the common origin of the four panels in Miklós Boskovits, “Giotto: Un artista poco conosciuto?” in Giotto: Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, ed. Angelo Tartuferi (Florence, 2000), 182–186; Angelo Tartuferi, in Giotto: Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, ed. Angelo Tartuferi (Florence, 2000), 118. On the panels in Chaalis, cf. Nicolas Sainte Fare Garnot, “Brève histoire d’une redécouverte,” in Primitifs italiens du Musée Jacquemart-­André (Paris, 2000), 104–105, who still seemed to accept Longhi’s reconstruction.

See Provenance, note 2. Commenting on the work many years later, Bernard Berenson observed: “si cita ancora la mia attribuzione​ . . . ​al Daddi, sebbene io rammenti d’aver scritto al Dr. Valentiner molto tempo prima che pubblicasse il catalogo di quella collezione [i.e., that of Henry Goldman] per informarlo che io ritenevo opera di uno dei pittori che eseguirono gli affreschi disegnati da Giotto nella chiesa inferiore di San Francesco ad Assisi” (My attribution to Daddi is still cited, even though I recall having written to Dr. Valentiner long before he published the catalog of the Goldman collection to inform him that I considered [it] the work of one of the painters who executed the frescoes designed by Giotto in the lower church of San Franceso in Assisi). See Bernard Berenson, “Quadri senza casa: Il Trecento fiorentino, 1,” Dedalo 11 (1930–1931): 988 n. 1. In fact, Wilhelm R. Valentiner, though maintaining the attribution to Daddi, also noted that the panel “is so closely related to the work of Giotto that one who is not professional would immediately think of the master himself.” Wilhelm R. Valentiner, The Henry Goldman Collection (New York, 1922), n.p., Introduction.

[12]

Raimond van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, vol. 3, The Florentine School of the 14th Century (The Hague, 1924), 185–190, tried to reconstruct the catalog of an “Assistant of Giotto’s” whom he dubbed the “Master of the Six Scenes from the Life of Christ.” This name referred to the series of panels cited in note 8 above (without the scene of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, now in the National Gallery in London). The Dutch scholar attributed both this group of paintings and the small versions of the Crucifixion in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin and in the Museum of Fine Arts in Strasbourg to the same hand, but they are now generally recognized as autograph works by Giotto. Van Marle also added to the catalog of the “Master of the Six Scenes” the painted crucifix in the Florentine church of San Felice in Piazza, a panel still disputed between those who regard it as an autograph work by Giotto and those who assign it to a studio assistant. Richard Offner, “A Remarkable Exhibition of Italian Paintings,” The Arts 5 (1924): 244, considered both the Goldman Madonna and the Saint Stephen in the Museo Horne in Florence the work of a “nameless master” of “considerable gifts who must have worked very close to Giotto.”

Once they came into possession of the painting after Goldman’s death, Duveen Brothers, Inc., commissioned expert opinions from the most reputable connoisseurs of the day. Since some of these expertises are dated 1938 (copies in NGA curatorial files), it must be assumed they were collected in anticipation of the painting’s sale to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Among the scholars approached by Duveen, Giuseppe Fiocco, Roberto Longhi, Wilhelm Suida, and Adolfo Venturi all unhesitatingly confirmed the attribution to Giotto, whereas Berenson and F. Mason Perkins attributed it respectively to a “close follower of Giotto” and “one of the closest and most gifted of Giotto’s anonymous pupils.” Not invited to express his opinion on this occasion, Richard Offner entrusted his view of the Goldman Madonna to a highly critical article devoted to the Italian paintings in the new National Gallery of Art in Washington, intended for the Art News but never in fact published; all that remains of it are the page proofs, copies of which are in the NGA curatorial files. “Thus the peculiarities of the National Gallery panel”—observes inter alia the great American connoisseur—“would commit it, like the altarpiece to which it belongs, to Giotto’s studio, where the living presence of the master communicated to this work a considerable proportion of its admirable qualities, but in which the actual execution was due to an assistant.” Offner’s judgment of our Madonna was, after all, highly positive; he combined it with a proposed dating “toward the end of the first quarter of the century,” close to that supported by Longhi and various other proponents of Giotto’s authorship.

It is worth adding that the newspaper article by Carlyle Burrows cited in Provenance note 5 triumphantly reported the “final judgment” of Bernard Berenson, as pronounced viva voce by the “nonagenarian authority on Italian Renaissance art” in 1958: Berenson had then decided, reported Burrows, to accept the panel as a genuine “late Giotto.” He would memorialize this oral opinion in his posthumously published volume, Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School, 2 vols. (London, 1963), 2:81. The fact that the recent Giotto monograph by Michael Schwarz (2009) did not cite the Washington Madonna presumably means that he did not accept the painting as an autograph work by Giotto. Cf. Michael Viktor Schwarz, Giotto (Munich, 2009).

Frank Jewett Mather, “Two Attributions to Giotto,” Art Studies 3 (1925): 25–27. See Julius von Schlosser, ed., Lorenzo Ghibertis Denkwürdigkeiten: I Commentarii, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1912), 1:36: “Nell’ordine de’ frati minori [in Florence] quattro cappelle et quattro tauole” (In the order of friars minor of Florence [i.e., Santa Croce] four chapels and four altarpieces). Vasari, ever since the first edition (1550) of his Vite, specified that the chapels in question were that with the stories of Saint Francis (the Bardi Chapel), that of the Peruzzi, that of the Giugni, and a fourth to the left of the sanctuary (the family chapel of the Tosinghi and Spinelli). Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri nell’edizione per i tipi di Lorenzo Torrentino, Firenze 1550, ed. Luciano Bellosi and Aldo Rossi (Turin, 1986), 119.

[21]

On this chapel, the penultimate to the left of the cappella maggiore, see Walter Paatz and Elisabeth Paatz, Die Kirchen von Florenz: Ein kunst­geschichtliches Handbuch, 6 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1940), 1:574; Richard Offner, Miklós Boskovits, and Enrica Neri Lusanna, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 3, The Works of Bernardo Daddi, new ed. (Florence, 1989), 122–145. The frescoes by Bernardo Daddi, with stories of Saints Lawrence and Stephen, probably date to the mid-third decade or slightly before. However, since they are superimposed over earlier frescoes (or possibly merely geometrical decoration), the chapel could have been officiated several years before Daddi’s intervention and perhaps even furnished with an altarpiece.

[22]

Julian Gardner, “Panel Paintings Attributed to Giotto in American Collections,” Center / National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts 19 (1999): 71; Julian Gardner, “Giotto in America (and Elsewhere),” in Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento, ed. Victor M. Schmidt, Studies in the History of Art (Washington, DC, and New Haven, 2002), 176.

[23]

Comparison with Giotto’s surviving polyptychs that include half figures of saints (the ones in the Badia, today in the Uffizi, Florence, and Santa Maria del Fiore [the Duomo]) shows a ratio between height and width of c. 2.5:1. If we assume that the panel in the National Gallery of Art originally had a size and shape similar to the panels of the two saints now in Chaalis, it must have been topped by an equilateral triangular gable and had an overall height of approximately 125 cm. We can then calculate the total width of the five-part polyptych as c. 312 cm. On the structure and proportions of Giotto’s polyptychs in general, see Monika Cämmerer-­George, Die Rahmung der toskanischen Altarbilder im Trecento (Strasbourg, 1966), 50–85.

Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, no. 61.60. The polyptych given to Jacopo del Casentino is one of the few Florentine polyptychs of the period to have survived intact; see Richard Offner and Miklós Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 4, Bernardo Daddi, His Shop and Following, new ed. (Florence, 1991), 179–189.

[28]

The Badia polyptych, painted by Giotto for the early medieval church that had been undergoing enlargement and reconstruction from 1284 onward, measures 91 × 340 cm. The polyptych painted by Simone Martini (Sienese, active from 1315; died 1344) in 1319 for the high altar of the Dominican church of Santa Caterina in Pisa measures 195 × 340 cm; that by Pietro Lorenzetti (Sienese, active 1306 - 1345), commissioned in 1320 for the main altar of the pieve of Santa Maria in Arezzo, 298 × 309 cm; and the panel by Meo da Siena, dated 1333 and destined for the high altar of San Pietro in Perugia, now in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut at Frankfurt, 59.5 × 304 cm. Smaller polyptychs were made for altars in side chapels or for the high altars in early churches, where the altar tables were generally of reduced size. We may cite as an example Giotto’s Stefan­eschi altarpiece in Old Saint Peter’s in Rome, whose original dimensions, despite its prestigious destination, were just over two and a half meters in width. On the problem, cf. Julian Gardner, “Fronts and Backs: Setting and Structure,” in La pittura nel XIV e XV secolo, il contributo dell’analisi tecnica alla storia dell’arte, ed. Hendrik W. van Os and J. R. J. van Asperen de Boer (Bologna, 1983), 297–322; Julian Gardner, “Giotto in America (and Elsewhere),” in Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento, ed. Victor M. Schmidt, Studies in the History of Art (Washington, DC, and New Haven, 2002), 160–181.

[29]

Peter Murray’s useful compilation (1959), complemented now by the work of Michael Viktor Schwarz and Pia Theis (2004), listed, apart from the Badia polyptych, four panels by Giotto in the church of Santa Croce, one in San Giorgio alla Costa (the fragmentary Maestà now in the Museo Diocesano of Florence), a crucifix and a now lost image of Saint Louis of Toulouse formerly in Santa Maria Novella, and a crucifix and four panels in Ognissanti. See Peter Murray, An Index of Attributions Made in Tuscan Sources before Vasari (Florence, 1959), 79–89; and Michael Viktor Schwarz and Pia Theis, Giottus pictor, vol. 1, Giottos Leben (Vienna, 2004), 285–303. The tabula altaris in the chapel of the Palazzo del Bargello is perhaps cited by error in a manuscript of Filippo Villani’s De origine. Other manuscripts of Villani’s book only report the presence of Giotto’s frescoes in this chapel; cf. Schwarz and Theis 2004, 290.

Of the four panels cited in Santa Croce, that of the Baroncelli Chapel is still in situ. There are no firm reasons for assuming that the polyptych now in the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh has a provenance from the family chapels of the east side of the transept of this church, though its relatively small size (105.7 × 250 cm) and the presence of Francis of Assisi among the saints represented (Santa Croce being a Franciscan church) make this a possibility. The hypothesis of Wilhelm Suida (1931), who considered this polyptych as intended for the Peruzzi Chapel, is now generally accepted. See Wilhelm Suida, “A Giotto Altarpiece,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 59 (1931): 188–193. The proposed identification of one of Giotto’s Santa Croce panels with that formerly in the Bromley Davenport collection at Capesthorne Hall (Macclesfield) is more uncertain. This altarpiece, perhaps a product of Giotto’s atelier and indeed intended for the church of Santa Croce, was certainly not painted by the hand of the master; the proposed attribution to the young Taddeo Gaddi seems very convincing. Its original destination might have been the Lupicini Chapel or, less probable, the Bardi Saint Francis Chapel, in either of which, given its relatively small size, it could have been easily accommodated on the altar. Cf. Mina Gregori, “Sul polittico Bromley Davenport di Taddeo Gaddi e sulla sua originaria collocazione,” Paragone 25, no. 297 (1974): 73–83; and Federico Zeri, “Italian Primitives at Mssrs. Wildenstein,” The Burlington Magazine 107 (1965): 252–256. We may wonder whether so acute an observer as Ghiberti could ever have classified it as an autograph work by the master himself. The panels of saints dispersed between the Horne and Jacquemart-­André museums remain to be considered. That they come from the chapels in the east transept of Santa Croce seems improbable due to their measurements; see Julian Gardner, “Giotto in America (and Elsewhere),” in Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento, ed. Victor M. Schmidt, Studies in the History of Art (Washington, DC, and New Haven, 2002), 181 n. 80. But the existence of a Giotto polyptych would also be conceivable in the chapel of Saint Louis, on the north side of the transept: this chapel, dating to the years 1332–1335, could have accommodated an altarpiece of a width exceeding 3 meters; cf. Irene Hueck, “Stifter und Patronatsrecht: Dokumente zu zwei Kapellen der Bardi,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 20 (1976): 263–270. It cannot be excluded, lastly, that one of Giotto’s four polyptychs might have been executed for the high altar of the old church of Santa Croce, in use at least until 1314 and perhaps until 1320/1330 and doubtless not left without appropriate decoration. See Walter Paatz and Elisabeth Paatz, Die Kirchen von Florenz: Ein kunstgeschichtliches Handbuch, 6 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1940), 1:500.

As for the church of Ognissanti, one of the panels with an undoubted provenance from the church is the Maestà now in the Uffizi, Florence, often—though without foundation—considered an altarpiece for the high altar or displayed on its rood-screen; cf. Irene Hueck, “Le opere di Giotto per la chiesa di Ognissanti,” in La ‘Madonna d’Ognissanti’ di Giotto restaurata (Florence, 1992), 37–49. Whatever the case, the fact remains that the Maestà comes from Ognissanti, as does the Dormitio Virginis now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (no. 1884) and the great painted crucifix still in situ in the church that Ghiberti cited in addition to the four panels. On the crucifix, see Marco Ciatti, ed., L’officina di Giotto: Il restauro della Croce di Ognissanti, Problemi di conservazione e restauro (Florence, 2010). Two other panels therefore remain to be identified. One might have been the “mezza Nostra Donna col fanciullo in braccio” that Ghiberti saw above the side door of the church leading into the cloister. It is possible, however, that this Madonna and Child was not a panel painting but a frescoed lunette. Julius von Schlosser, ed., Lorenzo Ghibertis Denkwürdigkeiten, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1912), 1:36.

[30]

Erling Skaug’s conclusion that “in Florence extensive punch work was introduced only about 1333–1334” was perhaps excessively cautious, since it was based only on securely dated paintings. Even so, Skaug admitted the occasional use of punches by Giotto before his terminus post quem, for example in the Stefaneschi altarpiece now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana (on which see the following note) and in that of the Baroncelli Chapel in Santa Croce. See Erling S. Skaug, Punch Marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico: Attribution, Chronology, and Workshop Relationships in Tuscan Panel Painting with Particular Consideration to Florence, c. 1330–1430, 2 vols. (Oslo, 1994), 1:34–36. This latter chapel was founded, according to the inscription on its external wall, in 1328; see Andrew Ladis, Taddeo Gaddi: Critical Reappraisal and Catalogue Raisonné (Columbia, MO, 1982), 88. In any case, the fact that the gold ground of the Goldman Madonna is totally devoid of punched decoration might be an indication that it predates both the Roman and Florentine polyptychs.

[31]

The Stefaneschi altarpiece has lost its original frame, which probably bore the signature of Giotto and the date of execution. The fourteenth-century Liber benefactorum in the Basilica Vaticana did not hesitate to identify Giotto as the artist of the polyptych, while the manuscript of the canon Giacomo Grimaldi, dating to the early seventeenth century, said it was “circa annum MCCCXX depicta.” Cf. Wolfgang Fritz Volbach, Catalogo della Pinacoteca Vaticana, vol. 1, I dipinti dal X secolo fino a Giotto (Vatican City, 1979), 45–51. There are no good reasons to doubt the reliability of this affirmation, probably based on an inscription partially legible on the original frame. In addition, a punch mark is used in the Ognissanti crucifix, which is probably earlier than the Stefaneschi altarpiece. See Miklós Boskovits, “Il Crocifisso di Giotto della chiesa di Ognissanti: Riflessioni dopo il restauro,” in L’Officina di Giotto: Il restauro della Croce di Ognissanti, ed. Marco Ciatti (Florence, 2010), 47–62.

[32]

Giotto had already used Kufic-type lettering in the halos of the mourners in the Santa Maria Novella crucifix, a painting generally recognized as one of the master’s earliest works, datable to c. 1290. Motifs similar to those of Mary’s halo in the Washington panel—interlaced motifs that are repeated in equal form from right to left, with the exception of two different decorative elements incised in the gold ground above the Madonna’s right shoulder—are matched in Christ’s halo in the Giottesque crucifix in San Felice in Piazza, Florence (figs. 5 and 6). Tracing based on Magnolia Scudieri, ed., Lacroce giottesca di San Felice in Piazza: Storia e restauro (Venice, 1992), 146. Invariably discussed as a product of Giotto’s shop and thought to be painted mainly by the master’s assistants, this work was dated to the early years of the fourteenth century by Giovanni Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega (Milan, 1967), 137–138; Carlo Volpe, “Sulla Croce di San Felice in Piazza e la cronologia dei crocefissi giotteschi,” in Giotto e il suo tempo: Atti del congresso internazionale per la celebrazione del vii centenario della nascità di Giotto, Assisi, Padova, Firenze (Rome, 1971), 253–263; and Giorgio Bonsanti, “La bottega di Giotto e la Croce di San Felice,” in La croce giottesca di San Felice in Piazza: Storia e restauro, ed. Magnolia Scudieri (Venice, 1992), 53–90; and toward 1310 or shortly after, i.e., the time of the Peruzzi Chapel, by Luciano Bellosi, Giotto (Florence, 1981), 69; and Miklós Boskovits, “Una vetrata e un frammento d’affresco di Giotto nel museo di Santa Croce,” in Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Federico Zeri, 2 vols. (Milan, 1984), 1:44, the latter of whom considered the crucifix an autograph painting by Giotto. Similar ornamental motifs also appear in the frescoes of the Saint Nicholas chapel in the lower church of San Francesco in Assisi, painted, according to the more recent studies, no later than c. 1300; cf. Brigitte Klesse, Seidenstoffe in der italienischen Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts (Bern, 1967), 192, no. 53 of the repertoire. For the dating of the Uffizi Maestà to the end of the first decade of the fourteenth century, cf. Giorgio Bonsanti, “La bottega di Giotto,” in Giotto: Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, ed. Angelo Tartuferi (Florence, 2000), 66; and Miklós Boskovits, “Giotto: Un artista poco conosciuto?” in Giotto: Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, ed. Angelo Tartuferi (Florence, 2000), 85. Adriano Pero­ni, “La Maestà di Ognissanti rivisitata dopo il restauro,” in La Madonna d’Ognissanti di Giotto restaurata (Florence, 1992), 30, argued, however, that the painting should date to the early years of the century.

[33]

In medieval Byzantine devotional images of the Madonna and Child—and hence also in Italian ones—Mary’s hair is in general hidden within a kind of coif. The color of this article of clothing may vary, but at least in central Italy within the last decades of the thirteenth and first decades of the fourteenth century, it is usually red, as in the Washington Madonna. The Virgin is represented in this way in Giotto’s pre-1300 Maestà now in the Museo Diocesano in Florence, in the fresco on the inner façade of the upper church of the basilica in Assisi, and also in the Uffizi Maestà and in the Stefaneschi altarpiece. In Giotto’s later works, such as the polyptych in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna; the Madonna of Santa Maria a Ricorboli, also in Florence; and the polyptych in the Baroncelli Chapel in Santa Croce (c. 1328), the mother of Christ instead wears a wimple and a transparent veil that covers her head but leaves her blond hair visible below it.

[34]

Bellosi, who was the first to use the width of the scooped neckline as an indication of dating, compared the neckline of the Washington Madonna with those painted by Pietro Lorenzetti in 1320 in the polyptych of the Pieve of Santa Maria in Arezzo, in Luciano Bellosi, “Moda e cronologia: B) per la pittura di primo Trecento,” Prospettiva 11 (1977): 12–14. Of course, that does not imply a dating ad annum; the fact remains that we find increasingly wider necklines than that of the Goldman Madonna in Giotto’s last decade of activity.

On the much-debated problem of the so-called “Parente di [i.e., relative of] Giotto,” a painter to whom—according to some art historians—the great master delegated much of the actual execution of very important commissions during the second and third decade of the fourteenth century, cf. a summary of the contributions of Giorgio Bonsanti and Miklós Boskovits, in Giotto: Bilancio critico di sessant’anni di studi e ricerche, ed. Angelo Tartuferi (Florence, 2000), 55–73, 75–94.

[42]

In their recent contribution, Maria Clelia Galassi and Elizabeth Walmsley (2009) observed analogies between the painting technique of the Washington Madonna and the panel in the Museo Horne in Florence and differences between the execution of these latter and the Ognissanti Madonna and the Raleigh polyptych. This may be explained, in my opinion, by their different dates of execution. See Maria Clelia Galassi and Elizabeth Walmsley, “Painting Technique in the Late Works of Giotto,” in The Quest for the Original: Underdrawing and Technology in Painting; Symposium 16, Bruges, 21 – ​23 September 2006 [Colloque pour l’Étude du Dessin Sous-­Jacent et de la Technologie dans la Peinture], ed. Hélène Verougstraete (Leuven, 2009), 116–122.

The Duveen Brothers Records contain an entry for restoration by their Paris restorer, Mme Helfer, in 1918 and another entry for restoration in 1919, presumably by a different restorer because the amount is recorded in US dollars (see Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 422). Historic x-radiographs show the panel with the earlier cradle. On Pichetto’s treatment, see Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols. (Washington, DC, 1979), 1:221, and see also the exchange of cables between the company’s New York and London offices (Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 89, box 234, folder 23).

[3]

Cross-sections taken by the NGA scientific research department in 2012 showed a thin green underpaint layer under the red bole. Joanna R. Dunn, Barbara H. Berrie, John K. Delaney, and Lisha Denning Glinsman, “The Creation of Giotto’s Madonna and Child: New Insights,” Facture 2 (2015): 6. [Editor’s note: This information was not available during Miklós Boskovits’s lifetime and has been added to the technical summary of this Online Edition in an endeavor to make available the most current information about the National Gallery of Art collections.]

[4]

Maria Clelia Galassi and Elizabeth Walmsley, “Painting Technique in the Late Works of Giotto,” in The Quest for the Original: Underdrawing and Technology in Painting; Symposium 16, Bruges, 21 – ​23 September 2006 [Colloque pour l’Étude du Dessin Sous-­Jacent et de la Technologie dans la Peinture], ed. Hélène Veroug­straete (Leuven, 2009), 116–122; Joanna R. Dunn, Barbara H. Berrie, John K. Delaney, and Lisha Deming Glinsman, “The Creation of Giotto’s Madonna and Child: New Insights,” Facture 2 (2015): 2–17. This was confirmed by the NGA Scientific Research Department using cross-sections in combination with scanning electron microscopy (see forthcoming report in NGA Conservation department files) and false-color hyperspectral infrared reflectography. The false-color hyperspectral infrared reflectography was captured using a modified 720 Surface Optics Corporation NIR hyperspectral camera. The focal plane has been replaced by a Sensor Unlimited high sensitivity InGaAs camera. The images were collected from 970 to 1680 nm with a spectral resolution of 3.4 nm. The artificial-color images were made using three bands (centered at 1000nm for the blue, 1200nm for the green and 1600 nm for the red) to better show features of interest.

At the time of this treatment the painting was analyzed by the NGA scientific research department using x-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF), cross-sections in combination with scanning electron microscopy, fiber optic reflectance spectrometry (XRF), and false color infrared reflectography (see forthcoming reports in NGA conservation files).